Fashion Club teams up with Kie&Kate for livestream to provide fashion inspiration

This past Wednesday, the York Fashion Club paired up with local boutique Kie&Kate for an Instagram Live event in which boutique owner Kati Kemph welcomed Fashion Club sponsors and board members, Mrs. Martinelli, Mrs. Samp, junior Piper Michalski, senior Cara Well and senior Emma Johnson, to style and create multiple outfits inspired by being home due to the pandemic. Each guest chose four outfits from the boutique to model and present to the viewers, providing some fashion inspiration and insight. 

“During the live, we focused on styling outfits,” Johnson said. “It was such a fun experience to have the store to ourselves, and get to help Kati, too. We focused on COVID-friendly outfits, such as outfits for online school or for bonfires, so we can still look fashionable but be COVID-friendly.” 

In between each model’s outfit display, Kemph showed viewers some of the newer home decor products Kie&Kate offers, like candles, decorative signs, games and activities for kids. Not only did the event occur to make the Elmhurst community aware of the great finds offered at Kie&Kate but also to keep the York Fashion Club students inspired to keep creating and styling while stuck at home. 

“Personally, the live helped me express my own style,” Michalski said. “It was really cool to see how everyone paired some of the same and different pieces. We all have different styles, so I felt like it was really neat to see all of us make different outfits that were trendy but still personal to us.” 

The models picked the outfits themselves straight from the Kie&Kate clothing racks, and they were outfits they themselves would wear. Tons of different styles of clothing were represented, from comfy pajama sets, to stylish jeans and jackets, to shimmery necklaces and bracelets. No matter what your personal style, there was something featured for everyone. 

“My favorite part of the live was coming up with the four outfits,” Johnson said. “It was fun to look around with Piper and Cara and bounce ideas off each other.”

Each model got the opportunity to present their chosen outfits to the camera and explain why they chose the pieces and why they styled them in that specific way. It was a nice insight into the specific fashion styles of each model and also provided the audience with some fashion inspiration. 

“My favorite part of doing the live was just being with some of the girls on the board and with the teachers,” Michalski said. “It was such a good night, and all of us coming together and having fun made it seem a little bit more normal for times like these. I hope that the viewers learned that, even though we’re not going out the same way we used to, there’s still so many ways for us to incorporate fashion into our lives.” 

Per the Fashion Club’s request, Kie&Kate agreed to donate 15% of all proceeds from the night of the live to NAMI, or the National Alliance on Mental Health. NAMI works to bring mental health awareness to people throughout the country and provide assistance to those who may be suffering from mental illness, but are unable to get help. 

“We chose NAMI because, with the pandemic going on, a lot is changing for people and things can get really stressful,” Michalski said. “It’s important to pay attention to mental health and make sure people are okay. We felt like it was an important charity to support and bring awareness to.” 

The live stream is up on Kie&Kate’s Instagram page, @kiekate, and can be viewed at any time.